Chevy Captiva Spotted

It looked like a Traverse at first, but it was smaller. Then I noticed the badge and realized that it was a Captiva, not sold in the US. This one had standard VA plates, not MFG plates. I'm not sure what it was doing in PA.

Isn't there some arcane rule about importing non-US vehicles for people working on a work visa?

It's sold here as a fleet vehicle for rental cars and such.

i've seen a couple on the road in MN... was as confused as you are.

Its a turd FWD, who cares.

Remember the last Saturn vue? GM took that car which they now had nowhere to sell, slapped some Chevy badges on it and now sell it only to fleets, not through dealers to individuals.

I heard on the radio the other day that they are only sold as fleet / rental cars in the US, as mentioned above.

That of course means when you start seeing them on the used market, they were all non-owner driven cars.

Ranger50 wrote: Isn't there some arcane rule about importing non-US vehicles for people working on a work visa?

I've seen a couple - one was a B5 Passat 4-motion TDI from Sweden. The dead giveaway was the Swedish tags. I talked to the owner and he confirmed it was a work-visa car. Granted, I hate to think what the crappy US diesel was doing to the car (this was long before the ULSD switch here).

Rented one in Cleveland with National RAC.

First thing I noticed was, "Whoa......this is a VUE." They did a minimal facelift.

And then you get into the thing and look for a place to plug in your iWhatever or SmartyPhone.........and............nothing! No 12V power plug anywhere in the dash! Had to use the plug in the console facing the rear seats. Eeesh!

There's a dealer here in Jacksonville that has one for sale. I remembered the Captiva name and those "vents" in the front fenders from somewhere's. Then I found them...the name is used by GM overseas for their Chevy and Vauxhall small SUVs. Yeah, it is the old Vue. So I went and looked them up on CarMax, and they have several, with 4 and 6 cylinder engines. The "good" news? There was a Vue/Captiva RedLine Edition that used the 3.6 GM V6 (250+ or- horsepower). The ""bad" ./ VERY BAD news? They had a very spotty rep for build "quality"...as in nearly lacking any. They look good, and when running go quite fast (at least the V6s do). But they are a poor used car buy. Chevy is strongly considering a next gen. Captiva that will be in dealer's showrooms soon...if approved.

As I read somewhere, the Captiva, which is assembled in Mexico, was put into US Fleet Sales to fill a gap created when the HHR's recently went out of production.

Didn't I start a thread about this a few months ago, or am I just losing my mind?

Same thing happened to me. I spotted one on my morning commute and I thought I was seeing some weirdo prototype. The one I saw had Tennessee plates, so I thought it was some sort of test car. Nope, just GM badge engineering the Vue into a Chevy for fleet use.

SilverFleet wrote: Didn't I start a thread about this a few months ago, or am I just losing my mind?

I thought I was the only one having deja vu!

I commented on it back in April. It appears that my point may have not been clear.
http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/chevy-captiva-rental/48347/page1/

I must have missed that, but a fleet-only car makes sense.

I see them all the time. Then again, I live in the rental-car capitol of the country.

I remember seeing a Ford Puma with German tags near Downtown Disney several years ago.

That name is even more stupid than Achieva.